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Palwasha Hamzad wants the dutch The election will not be about migration, but about tackling the long-term housing shortage in the Netherlands.
For Daniel Vergouwen, it’s about putting “our own people” first.
Their opposing views constitute two key issues in the campaign for all 150 seats in the Dutch parliament on October 29. Lok SabhaThey also reframe debates about migration Europe As soon as right wing politics gets support.
Great victory for Wilders
Far right, anti-Islam lawmaker geert wilders , party for freedomThe party, known by its Dutch acronym PVV, won a surprise victory in 2023 on a pledge to impose drastic curbs on migration. He led to the collapse of the four-party coalition government in June by withdrawing its MPs from the cabinet in a dispute over the implementation of his action.
This time, Wilders’ campaign pledge is a “total blockade” to asylum seekers. An analysis of the parties’ election manifestos by the Dutch Order of Lawyers states that such a policy would be a violation of international treaties.
Wilders’ manifesto states, “We have too many foreigners, too many asylum seekers, too much Islam and too many asylum seekers in the centre.” What he calls the “open border policy” of his political rivals is “completely destroying our country.”
As voting day approaches, Wilders’ party is leading in the polls, but even if he manages to win again, he is unlikely to be able to form a coalition, as many other mainstream parties have refused to work with him. Other mainstream parties have also included steps to reduce migration in their manifestos as the issue crosses political fault lines.
Violent protests against new asylum-seeker centers have erupted in towns and villages across the Netherlands in recent months, with protesters lighting fires and sometimes waving the tricolor flag, which was adopted by Dutch Nazi sympathizers during World War II. Wilders says he is opposed to violence.
Afghan born teacher
Hamzad is a beneficiary of long-standing Dutch hospitality to asylum seekers, which has been strained in recent years. She fled Afghanistan’s capital Kabul as a child and eventually settled in this historic city near Amsterdam. In near-fluent Dutch, she now identifies herself as a proud resident of Haarlem, where she works in elementary education and is a municipal representative for Green Left, the party that has joined forces with the Labor Party to present a united center-left bloc in the election.
Hamzad argues that people being forced to sleep in cars and families having to wait years for social housing are far more serious issues than curbing migration. She says the housing crisis is not caused by the “New Netherlanders”, but by the right-leaning ruling coalition over the years.
“We see the free market overwhelmed and social provisions increasingly eroded,” he said.
Wilder’s heartland
Vergauwen was born and raised in the rural village of Sint Willebrord, where nearly three out of every four votes in the 2023 election went to Wilders’ party.
“We are more for our people,” she said outside her clothing store lining Sint Willebrord’s main street. “Of course, we give them more subsidies than the foreigners who come in.”
Wilders compounds the issues of the housing shortage, which causes people to wait years for subsidized apartments or pay the price of overheated housing markets. They argue that the waiting list is so long because refugees receive preferential treatment.
Vergauwen agrees.
“You see people increasingly coming to the Netherlands because the situation in their own countries is getting worse,” he said. “But then you wouldn’t be able to build a home for your children. And I would find that very sad.”
The official Dutch government statistics office says total migration to the country of 18 million last year fell by 19,000 from the previous year to 316,000, including people whose asylum applications were accepted. About 40% came from Europe and about half from the rest of the world. About one in 10 Dutch citizens was returning from abroad.
The government says municipalities have other options to accommodate refugees, not just social housing. The Dutch Refugee Council rejected Wilders’ argument that people granted protection visas to live in the Netherlands are causing the housing crisis, saying that not enough homes are being built there.
‘Politicization of immigration’
Leonie de Jonge, a professor of far-right extremism at the University of Tübingen in Germany, says Wilders “has been extremely successful in politicizing immigration as a cultural threat to the homogeneity of the Netherlands.”
“Putting this issue at the top of the political agenda really helps explain why the PVV is so successful,” he said.
De Jonge said that although support for Wilders remains high, voters could still punish him at the ballot box for failing to deliver on his promises after the 2023 election.
Hamzad says she is optimistic that the election will bring a change in political direction and that she will remain in her adopted homeland regardless of the outcome.
“This is my life and my future,” she said. “My commitment is here in the Netherlands.”